Experiential learning and social justice
Mustafa Erdogan
Experiential Learning is a holistic learning theory putting the learners and their experiences in the center. I would like to bring forward the meaning of putting the learner and his/her experience in the center... What that really means? Is this only about active participation of the learner while designing the education program? Is this only about considering different learning styles? I believe it is not possible to understand the philosophy of experiential learning, without discussing the aim of learning. Why are we putting the learner in the center? What is the real aim? Is it just a concern about the effectiveness of our education? These questions worth to ask for exploring the deeper philosophy of experiential learning.
We can’t talk about a fully learner centered approach without including the learner’s not only experiences but also the source of those experiences. The source here refers to the real life of the learner which needs to be transformed by the learner. This real-life context includes problems, obstacles and oppressions. The learner needs to be empowered enough to be able to transform this reality. We can generalise this concept from individual to society and start discussing the issue of social justice.
If we talk about social justice, we also naturally talk about social injustice. So, I want to touch this social injustice where human is being regarded as objects as Freire points. There is injustice among people/social groups/genders/classes/ages that while some people are regarded as subjects and some are objects. This situation is dehumanization. So, if we don’t look at the deeper philosophy of experiential learning, we can’t discover its power for re-humanisation and empowerment.
For example, if we consider learning styles only for categorizing the people then we regard our learners as objects not subjects. But if we understand the deeper meaning of the styles as a development path for being whole, then we can benefit from experiential learning for empowering people.
Experiential Learning Cycle is not just a technical framework that shows us how to connect the concrete with abstract through reflection and how to apply this new knowledge for creating new experiences. Experiential Learning Cycle is more than this.
It is not a road that we make our learners walk to an ideal learning direction, it is a space where our learners can build their own roads for transforming their own worlds. A world with more justice.
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